Noob Gaming on a Budget: Build or Buy

[PP Mguire]

5 bucks more for essentially the same thing.

 

[Bag_O_Chips]

Yes true but I trust the Gskill brand a bit more. I do realize you have PNY ram and I have used it at times (not lately) and never had any issues. I think the OP would be fine with other choice quite frankly. At least this way he has one alternative with a good price as well. Either of those kits would be a great value. I do usually prefer a 1.5v kit for the default voltage though, especially on a basic board.

 

[PP Mguire]

5 bucks extra goes over his allotted 700 dollar budget though. The rig I built was 699 on the dot. These days with RAM you can practically run anything without a hitch if it fits the bill. I didn't choose the PNY RAM because I had it, but that does add extra insurance if the OP wonders. I have what is essentially 2 of those kits in my machine right now running without a hitch. They will also run 1600 cas 9 at 1.5v as well.

 

[Bag_O_Chips]

Here's the $5.00 and then some

Newegg.com - ASRock H81M-DGS R2.0 LGA 1150 Intel H81 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Although between the two I would choose the Asus you linked.

 

[PP Mguire]

Yea I'm not fond of the ASRock H81 series personally.

 

[Bag_O_Chips]

Interestingly out of this thread, and subsequently doing some searching I just found a really nice looking Biostar H81 regular ATX with some higher end amenities I will order one and test it. Never seen this board until now.

Newegg.com - BIOSTAR Hi-Fi H81S2 LGA 1150 Intel H81 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

 

[PP Mguire]

That board is interesting. Marketed as a mining board, yet has this "hi-fi" setup and moniker going on as well as labeled as 8 channel, yet I see only a 5.1 capable output setup. For a board that would sit in a closet mining.

 

[Reapt]

Not to sound rude, but sounds like horse ****. I'm not exactly a huge lover of 8 and I've had my fair issues but basically only a few things are quirky. The only major issues I've had seem to be rather few and far but there have been cases even on the board that mimic my own. That aside, my only major complaint about 8 is this pastel UI looking ****. I was a classic theme lover.

Back to business, 700 dollars is actually enough to build a fairly nice rig and something good to start out with. No it isn't enough to warrant an i7, but lucky for you games don't utilize HT so it isn't necessary anyways.

Building a PC is fairly simple. Everything has it's own slot and it's pretty difficult to muck up. There are also a ton of video guides that walk you through the process. I would lookup Newegg build guides on Youtube as a good example.

CPU:
Newegg.com - Intel Core i3-4130 Haswell 3.4GHz LGA 1150 54W Dual-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4400 BX80646I34130

Motherboard:
Newegg.com - ASUS H81M-K LGA 1150 Intel H81 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

RAM:
PNY XLR8 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model MD8192KD3-1600-X9 - Newegg.com

GPU:
Newegg.com - ASUS GTX750TI-OC-2GD5 GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB 128-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready Video Card

PSU:
SeaSonic S12II 520 Bronze 520W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Newegg.com

Case:
Corsair Carbide Series 200R Black Steel structure with molded ABS plastic accent pieces ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Newegg.com

HDD:
Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive Bare Drive - Newegg.com

OS:
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - Newegg.com

Optical:
ASUS Model DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS 24X DVD Burner - Bulk Black - Newegg.com

$699

This is a good solid start that is rather upgradeable in the future. You can go with an i5 4670k later on, and the PSU is good for up to a GTX 770 or R9 280x. I went with Windows 7 because that's what you want, but you're more than welcome to change it to 8 if you change your mind.

Before you ask, yes the i3 is more than capable of gaming. If anything the 750ti is a bit lacking in terms of raw performance but from the sounds of things this PC will blow what you currently have away.

I'm gonna be that guy. Besides having to use the search feature to find most of my programs. I Iove windows 8. Yeah it takes some getting used to but my overall experience with it(since first release) it's been great… even better since 8.1.
I like this build.

 

[carnageX]

I'm gonna be that guy. Besides having to use the search feature to find most of my programs. I Iove windows 8. Yeah it takes some getting used to but my overall experience with it(since first release) it's been great… even better since 8.1.
I like this build.

I'm "that guy" as well, no worries .

I still haven't gotten around to upgrading to 8.1, mostly for the fact that about 2/5 people I know personally that upgraded ended up having to reformat because something messed up during the upgrade and Windows acted funky afterwards until they reformatted.

 

[Gabis1207]

I'm "the other guy" who has no idea about going from 7 to 8 to 8.1, because I did a clean install, like the newb I am.